


Love Birds

by Gedry



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angel Healing, Angels, Demons, Fallen Angels, M/M, Slow Burn, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:13:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21854536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gedry/pseuds/Gedry
Summary: Oswald has never really fit with the angels.  His mother being a demon led to his rejection by most of his peers.  But after he loses her during the culling, can he form a bond with what he finds in her place?
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

Before the culling Oswald would have never left his nest without every feather gleaming and every hair in place. His mother had called him dapper and he had taken a twisted pride in his appearance. 

As far as angels go, Oswald was always the ugly duckling. 

His mixed heritage made him stand out in a sea of white winged guardians. Oswald’s obsidian feathers reflecting hues of purple and green where everyone else's gleamed silver in the sunlight. He was short, they were tall. He was pale, they were tanned by the kiss of the sun that never seemed to take to Oswald as well as it did everyone else. 

Except for the freckles. 

He was dark, they were light, right down to the shine of their grace being a beautiful golden light from their seat of their being. Oswald’s grace clamoring across the area surrounding him like an infection sucking up all the light and leaving only the pitch of darkness behind. 

He can fly, but not as well as the pure blooded angels. His mother’s womb not meant to carry a tiny being with wings. It had been cramped, the healers told her, he had been unable to stretch them in utero as the other fledglings had. His right one forever weaker due to the confined space. 

She never forgave herself. Oswald didn’t, couldn’t blame her. A demon was never meant to mate with an angel. Much less have offspring. 

Oswald had been called impossible many times. 

Only his mother ever called him a miracle. And she was gone.

He had never had friends, other than one odd bird, no other fledglings wanted to be anywhere near him. As a young man he had tried to blend in, to be like them, to form some kind of a bond with the others. 

But angels bond through grace, and whatever shapes Oswald’s soul, an angel’s grace is not it. 

The brushes of grace from those brave enough to try have burned like hellfire. Their grace hurts him, his overwhelms theirs, threatening to drown them under his power. He has long since accepted he will have no mating bond, no fledglings, no nest shared with another. 

He was content with his mother, he wasn’t alone. He had her, and the river. Gotham’s water as soothing as her hands in his wings while she groomed him. 

And then … they came. 

Demons, from the deepest part of the pit, shattering the long but delicate peace between their people. They culled everything that got in their way. 

The angels fought with all their might, eventually forcing them back across purgatory and back where they belonged. Many lives were lost, bonds broken, mates torn from each other. Nests destroyed. There were rumors the demons had to have inside information, knew the mystical codes surrounding their safeguards, that only the royal council would have been able to give that information to them. The debates and suspicions were unending. The tensions were terribly high. 

And Oswald, after weeks of searching endlessly, couldn’t find his mother. 

In the white hot rage that followed, Oswald crossed the barriers into Hell without a second thought. He had no one to turn to, no one else that mattered. They later told him he slaughtered anything and everyone that got into his path. 

All the way into the deepest part of Hell, Oswald followed their trail. Past the point of all hope he still flew. And at the center of the bottom of their pit he found her poor, broken body still being shielded from further abuse by an angel he barely remembered. 

“Ed,” he gasps as the emaciated angel turns to look at him as though he’s seeing a ghost. 

It can’t be, Edward Nygma, the royal scholar was killed during a peace envoy along the border years ago. He had been the closest thing Oswald had ever had to a friend. Fascinated by their differences and estranged from angels enough himself to not worry about his social status. 

But here they are together. 

“Oswald,” Ed croaks, “I’m sorry. I tried to help her. But they’ve broken my grace. I’m useless.”

And broken he appears indeed. 

Oswald hesitates, reaching out to cup his mother’s cheek and sob into her hair. Behind him he can hear the reinforcements coming. 

“Take her home,” Ed pleads, shoving her body into Oswald’s hands. “Mourn her. Save yourself. You have to go NOW.” 

Oswald raises his eyes to the other man who is barely able to stand, two fractured wings clinging to his back. He makes a decision. Kissing his mother’s forehead one final time before he lets her rest on the ground. They have to part here. He understands that now.  
They part with love. 

He grabs Ed instead, hands like claws as he yanks the broken angel free from his bindings. “Hold on,” he orders as he surges into the air and cuts a path of death back toward Heaven. 

“Oswald,” Ed whispers as he is surrounded by Oswald’s dark grace. 

By the time he makes it back to his river and splashes into it with Ed still surrounded by his wings, Oswald isn’t sure if he brought back a friend or a corpse. Ed is so still. 

Then Ed jerks, twisting in the water as Oswald closes his eyes and prays that he made the right choice. Ed twists up out of the water, injured, bleeding, but alive. His wings all but destroyed. 

And from behind his eyes his grace shines not the unearthly white it used to, but a deep silver with reflections of green. 

Oswald sees him and thinks only one thing. A thing he never thought he would ever experience. 

He looks as this broken angel and his soul screams...MATE. 

He always did have terrible timing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward is weak, beyond weak. But they are able to find shelter in an abandoned nest close to the river. Ed’s nest has been long since sacked due to his supposed death, and Oswald having lost the one he shared with his mother in the culling.

Edward is weak, beyond weak. But they are able to find shelter in an abandoned nest close to the river. Ed’s nest has been long since sacked due to his supposed death, and Oswald having lost the one he shared with his mother in the culling. 

Oswald settles Ed into their temporary nest with care, leaving the angel behind once he is settled to find food, water, and hopefully a healer. In the end he manages to come back with two out of the three. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers as he leans over his...mate with a cup of fresh water. “This is the best I can do tonight.”

Ed looks at him as though he has lost his mind. “You freed me from Hell, brought me home, found us a safe place to rest, and fought off your own injuries and exhaustion long enough to find food and water for me. You have done more than enough for me. Thank you.”

Oswald flushes. He knows his wings are puffing up behind him, proud of having impressed a potential bond mate even though this can’t possibly go anywhere. “We thought you were dead,” he tells Ed as he sips at the water he’s offered. 

“So did I,” Ed answers before shivering all over. “Hurts. I’m cold.”

Oswald watches with grief as Ed’s battered wings try to curl around his shivering body only to cause the taller man to cry out in pain and clench his teeth. He can’t stand it Oswald creeps as close as he can and wraps Ed’s trembling form up in his wings and arms. They curl together for warmth. Ed sleeps, Oswald keeps watch and allows himself to enjoy holding someone for the first time. 

*****  
They make it to the capital the next day, Ed rushed off by medical providers for healing and Oswald, also injured left hovering in the hallway with no clue what he’s supposed to be doing now. 

Angel healing requires the touch of a healer’s grace. Oswald has never been able to tolerate the pain that comes with the touch of another grace against his. He will heal on his own, quicker when he rests and allows his grace to replenish. He’s just been so consumed with caring for Ed that he hasn’t had the time. 

He could leave, but he has nowhere to go. The few friends he has have to be occupied due to the ongoing chaos along the border. Oswald sighs, hungry and exhausted and slides down the wall into a heap on the floor. He leans his head back, concentrating on his grace and is just about to slip into a light sleep when Ed starts screaming. 

Oswald yanks himself to his feet and staggars after the horrific shrieking coming from the man he saved. Whatever is happening, Ed is in agony and Oswald is going to stop it NOW. He did not bring this angel back from Hell to have their own people kill him. 

It only takes him a second after he kicks open the door to understand what’s happening. 

They aren’t TRYING to hurt Ed. They’re trying to heal him. 

But the touch of their grace must now burn Ed as badly as it burns Oswald. At the thought, Oswald almost weeps. After all Ed has suffered, the comfort of his brethren now taken from him too. 

“Oswald,” the lead healer calls out to him, “You understand his plight.” 

Oswald remembers her from years ago, when he had still hoped exposure therapy would allow him to form grace bonds with the others. She had been assigned to him, a blunt but pleasant woman. In the end it was nonproductive. Oswald suffered, but nothing changed. 

“I do,” he sighs. “Do you think for him it might be different? He’s tainted by the demons, it’s not part of his nature like it is mine. Could you clear it if he hangs on long enough?”

“He’s fighting us,” She comments as she waves the other healers away from Ed’s gasping and still writhing form. “It’s like he doesn’t want to be healed. There’s a part of his grace he has almost completely walled away from us. When we reach for it, his grace shoves us away.” 

“Ed,” Oswald pleads as he nears the bed. “I know it hurts, believe me, but you have to let them heal you, Old Friend.” 

“No,” Ed pants, his tattered wings flapping haphazardly. “Not them.”

“Then who,” Oswald pleads. “Whoever you want, I’ll find them. But you have to let someone help you, Ed. You’re so weak.”

Ed’s body slowly loses the tension he’s built due to his suffering. Oswald tries not to hear how wet his breaths sound in his damaged lungs. “You,” Ed whispers. “I’ll accept only you.”

Oswald’s mouth drops open in shock. His wings droop until the drag the floor. “Me?” he questions. “I can’t touch anyones grace, Ed. I’m not a healer. Even if I could, blending your grace with mine isn’t going to clear yours. It might make it worse. You have a chance to be normal. Pick anyone else, please.”

“You,” Ed snaps before choking and coughing as he holds his ribs and tears roll down his face. “I don’t want to be normal,” Ed gasps. “You or noone.”

Oswald turns to Olga, “Is this even possible? I’m not a healer.”

She shrugs, her wings rising and falling behind her back, “No clue. But if you don’t try he will die, Oswald. If this is all he is willing to accept then you best get to work.” 

Oswald bites his lip, reaching out to brush the hair away from Ed’s forehead, watching as the injured man’s eyes roll at the touch. He presses closer to the bed, braver now that Ed hasn’t literally pushed him away. He cups Ed’s face, remembering from the treatments he suffered through that skin to skin contact was needed. Oswald sends just a tiny bit of his grace to brush against Ed’s grey essence. 

At the first touch they both tense. But then Ed melts into the bed with a sigh and Oswald, panicked looks to Olga for direction.   
“Get in the bed with him then,” Ogla sighs. “It’s improper, but you never cared about that and you’re both exhausted. Be sure to keep the grace link while you settle, but once you do pour as much as you can spare into him. He needs it.”

Oswald nods shakily and stumbles his way through settling into the bed next to Ed’s prone form. 

Once he’s there, he closes his eyes and pulses everything he has toward Ed’s grace. Oswald was never sure what it might feel like to share a link with someone. He’s stunned to find himself completely washed away in the tide of Ed’s soul.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald is barely aware of his body. Aches and pains that have bothered him since his flight into Hell washed away by his total dedication to helping Ed as much as he is able.

Oswald is barely aware of his body. Aches and pains that have bothered him since his flight into Hell washed away by his total dedication to helping Ed as much as he is able.

He wishes Ed agreed with him on that. 

Every time Oswald threads his grace across an area of Ed’s battered soul the angel reaches back and tries with all his might to heal Oswald. It’s ridiculous. His mostly minor injuries melting away in the face of Ed’s touch while Oswald is struggling to make any headway on Ed’s damage caused by long term...torture. 

He can’t think of a better way to classify it. 

Finally, in an act of desperation, Oswald chooses to focus on Ed’s wings, nearly crippled with the amount of pain they have suffered. He swarms his dark grace over Ed’s injuries and all but smothers Ed’s trembling grace with his own. There’s a push against his grace, but only for a moment. Ed settles, his grace smoothing out seeming to stretch against Oswald’s in a ripple of something that reminds Oswald of the salted dark chocolate his mother used to favor. 

They made her happy, she would say, because the little bit of salt added bitterness and happiness cannot be appreciated without having understood pain. 

He had never really understood her. But then, Oswald wonders if he has ever truly been happy.

The thought seems to spark something in Ed. Oswald’s not sure how deep the healing link between them goes, if Ed is aware of what he is thinking. But there’s suddenly images of himself flashing across his head. 

He’s younger, rumpled, his wings spread as wide as they would go, and he’s yelling at the top of his lungs, very nearly screeching at an angel. Oswald doesn’t remember this. Perhaps because there have been too many times he’s been that angry. But it clearly means something to Ed because along with the image Oswald is suddenly swarmed with a feeling that is not his own. 

Adoration, His ire had impressed Ed. That makes Oswald flush, his grace shivering in response. 

But then there’s more. 

The angel Oswald had been yelling at suddenly reaches out and shoves him. Oswald slamming into the hard ground on his wounded wing with a gasp of what he remembers being pain. 

Oh...Oswald DOES remember this moment. He’s still confused as to why Ed has hung onto it. Oswald himself has tried to forget it for much of the rest of his life. 

The angel standing over him calls him a freak. There’s no sound in this memory, but Oswald remembers the white hot anger that flared inside him when it left the others mouth. He watches as he kicks out, tripping the other angel so that he falls to the ground. He watches his younger self lurch to his feet far faster than he thinks he could now and raise his foot to stomp on the offending angel’s wing as hard as he can. 

Oswald flinches, why is this so important to Ed?

And then he knows, he can feel it the moment Ed experienced it. Edward Nygma, just barely no longer a fledgling, looking at Oswald, several years his senior, a dangerous man. Ed’s grace bursting forward with everything inside it screaming that Oswald is his mate. Only for Oswald to not reciprocate. He feels Ed’s pain as he watches himself turn and flee. 

But the truth of it is even more than just the unanswered mating call. The angel Oswald had attacked turns out to be Ed’s father as he watches the rest of the memory play out almost frozen in horror. As the angel he injured takes his frustration out on Ed. 

Oswald finally tries to jerk himself away. This can’t be happening. 

More flashes of Ed’s memories pour into him. Their first, terribly awkward meeting, Ed attempting to heal him after he drunkenly crashed into the ground at his feet while flying. Hours spent together in Ed’s library just...existing together. Oswald content with having finally found a friend and Ed, poor Ed, secretly pining for his mate.

So close, but unobtainable. 

He never knew. Oswald hopes Ed understands that now. He was totally ignorant of Ed’s pain. 

Oswald turns his attention to the healing link as he experiences a sudden wave of nausea. Ed’s wings are...improved. Oswald is still worried he will never fly again. But there’s only so much he can do in one sitting. He’s exhausted, unable to fight Ed as the angel shoves his grace away, gently, almost sadly, tucking Oswald’s grace back into his own body. 

There’s a final lingering brush against his soul as Ed’s grace backs away. 

Oswald blinks in the bright light of the healing room, once he is able to focus he realizes he’s still in the bed with Ed pressed against him. Ed’s face has turned away from him toward the wall. Oswald feels an unexplainable burst of rejection just from that small gesture. 

Is this what Ed felt all these years?

“I’m sorry,” Ed croaks without looking at him. “I had resolved myself to never tell you once I realized we were incompatible. But I was never really able to accept that. It’s why I worked so hard to become the lead scholar. It’s why I was part of that envoy on the border that led to me being captured. I had exhausted all angelic knowledge about mating without finding a shred of hope. I thought, because of your mother, that maybe the answer was with the other side of your nature. It turned out to be a terrible mistake.” 

Oswald’s mouth drops open in horror. “Ed…”

“It’s alright,” Ed shakes his head. “I don’t expect anything from you. I’ll let the healers try again tomorrow. I had hoped that maybe the changes to my grace would allow for us to be together finally. I just wanted to have one moment where I could...touch you at your heart. When I realized they had taken your mother ...when you came for her...I thought it must have been destiny or something that I understand now is equally as ridiculous. You’re grace just felt so good around me as you flew me out of Hell.”

“Ed,” Oswald tries again.

“Please don’t,” Ed interrupts. “Save me some dignity. I won’t….”

“ED!!!!” Oswald bellows. “ENOUGH!” 

The bed shakes. Ed freezes. Healers rush in from the hall and Oswald bares his teeth, throwing himself over Ed’s prone form and puffing out his wings as much as he can, snarling, “GET OUT, MINE!” 

They turn and flee as though their lives depend on it. 

It very well might. 

Oswald is prone to fits of rage and ranting on a good day, this is not a good day.

“Edward,” he starts in a low growl from where he is still crouched over the other angel. Ed’s eyes wide as they take in his twisted snarling face. “I need you to believe that I never knew before today, before you told me.” Ed nods his stunned agreement. “Good.” 

Oswald slips back down beside the taller angel in the tight space of their bed. “Mate.” Oswald nuzzles his nose into the space just behind Ed’s sharp jaw. He feels more than hears the gasped intake of breath Ed makes at the word. 

“Oswald,” Ed whimpers as he tries to turn to face him and fails due to the injuries Oswald has been as of yet unable to heal. “Please.”

Oswald gathers him close, petting through his hair and pressing a kiss to his brow. 

Sleep overcoming both of them with so much left unspoken.


End file.
